Irish National Organisation of the Unemployed

February’s Live Register Figures

8 Mar 2019

On March 7th, 2019 the Central Statistics Office (CSO) published the Live Register figures for February, 2019 and it stood at 196,934, a decline of 38,410 people on the same month last year. The seasonally adjusted register figure for February was 196,500. This is the first time that the seasonally adjusted Live Register was less than 200,000 since April 2008, when it was 199,600.

39.3% of the Register, or 77,413 people, have been on it for more than a year: 19,161 fewer people than in February, 2018. Young people, aged under 25 years account for 6.4% of those on the Register for more than a year. The age group with the highest share of this part of the Register are those aged 45-54 years, with 16,495 people. Looking at these figures from a gender perspective, women account for 40.7% and men 59.3 %. Looking at the figures from a combination of age and gender, the largest group are men aged 35-44 years, accounting for 13% of this part of the Register.

Of the people who have been on the Register for more than a year, 44,018 people have been on it for three years or more, which represents 56.9 % of those on the Register for more than a year, and 22.4 % of the whole Register. Looking at this figure from the perspective of age and gender, men aged 45-54 years are the largest group, accounting for 13.6 % of this part of the Register.

According to the Annex Table there were 52,361 people participating on Activation Programmes in January, 2019: 6,515 fewer participants then in the same month in 2018. There were 34,803 participants on employment programmes, 3,508 fewer people than a year ago. The biggest of these programmes was Community Employment with 21,371 participants. The only programme with more participants in January, 2019 than in same month in 2018 was Tús, a community based employment programme, which had 6,445 participants (+100).

Participation on education and training programmes fell by 3,007 participants to 17,558. The CSO noted that in the education and training figures that an actual figure has been given for the Vocational Training Opportunities Scheme (VTOS): 3,045. Up to now the VTOS figures were estimated at 5,000 per month. The CSO have revised the figures / data from January 2018, as the information is now available from the SOLAS computer system (PLSS). PLSS stands for Programme and Learner Support System.